The man caught having sex with a bicycle in an Ayr hostel has been put on three years' probation, the Telegraph reports.
Robert Stewart, 51, had already earned himself an entry in the sex offenders' register for the incident last October in which two cleaners discovered him "wearing only a white T-shirt, naked from the waist …

COMMENTS

What is the country coming to?

Let me get this right. Some sad little man tries it on with his bike in his locked bedroom which is unlocked and opened by cleaners and he gets 3 years probation and an entry onto the sex offenders register???

Why has this gone to court? Was he actually hurting anybody? Does this mean that all other inanimate objects used for sexual pleasure can get you on the sex offenders register and a possible jail term (Looks like Ann Summers could have problems flogging thier wares if they are all suddenly illegal)

Yes he's a sicko, yes he's sad, but surely what you do in your own bedroom with inanimate objects is your own business no matter how strange it is.

More proof that the establishment has given up going after real criminals and is instead just punishing random people for random things to show how big thier balls are!!!

@Bert Ragnarok

WTF?

I was going to make a snide comment comparing to American prudes but really all I can to is read the story and think, WTF? Some one mentioned getting it quashed in the comments after the first story, I had some how dreamed that night happen, but he is still on the sex offenders list.

Am I the only one who thinks this is completely OTT?

So let's see... this chap was in a hotel room behind a locked door using his bike for a wank. What's the big deal? He wasn't doing it in public. Granted, he should have told the cleaners to bog off, but this is way too harsh. If he'd been on the short strokes he might not have heard them.

What if he'd been using a blow-up doll? Or one of those things that (so I'm told) you can stick on your todger, switch on and lie back to enjoy. Ah, the appliance of science. Would he have received a lesser sentence, given that he'd have been using something for what it was designed for?

The glaikit wee tube who handed doon this sentence needs a nod in the napper. Fae the first time in ma life, ah'm a wee bit embarrassed tae hail fae Scotland.

Has the law changed?

I thought that a "sex offender" was someone who was convicted of a crime involving sex? I don't see how some pervert having his end away with an inanimate object can be a crime. He was in the supposed privacy of his own bedroom when the people who complained entered the room without his permission, so unless the bike was objecting to his advances then it can't be a crime.

I've heard of...

I've heard ...

@Anonymous Coward

The cleaners unlocked a locked door and walked in on him. If they decided to stay and watch the action surely he is well within his rights to think "Wehey, a couple of ladies and a bike GRRAAAWWARRR"

They should have opened the door, seen the room is occupied, shut it as quick as they could and left the area. Does this mean that if i'm in a hotel with my wife and a cleaner wanders in when we are getting jiggy with it I can be arrested for <insert sexual crime here>.

It is a load of trash, a complete waste of time and money and I can't belive he was actually convicted!!

Nuts

This is crazy. What sort of Nanny state exists that will register a blokey (or a lady via bicycle pump-action) on the sex offenders list for loving a bicycle? Nuts, absolutely nuts. Did the bicycle testiclefy in court?

I feel sorry for the poor fella. He must have been in some state to start pumping a bike but then, mid-stroke a pair of cleaning ladies come, erm, enter into his room. Imagine what was going through his mind, he must have thought Christmas had come, erm, arrived early... If the cleaners were offended they should have used the obscuring power of their towels (hotel cleaners always carry towels).

Anyone know what kind of bike it was?

Re: He continued when disturbed

The issue was that, when the cleaners entered, he continued. As he admitted "When the cleaners came in, he thought he was having fun with them". This was the actual offence.

As mentioend we don't know all the in's and outs of this, only the court (and the bike ) does.... But... Is it really his fault they didn't see what was happening and leave?

Crikey, if the offense is as said because they saw a sex act they themselves thought was offensive (and the court subsequently decides it is, despite being in private) pretty much any one of us knocking off a quick one with a trusty fleshlight/hand/bike/pizza (or similar) is likely to end up on this register :O

Hardly his fault he was walked in on, and perhaps a little to drunk to realise he should stop, dammit I bet every one of us has heard our mouths saying something while drunk and the brain is screaming "for the love of god stop!", they should have just left and let the guy alone in peace, or send him to the USSR, in Soviet Russia the bike screws you!

Had to move three times?

Who on earth has been so offended by this that he's been hounded out of his house three times? I own several bicycles, but I wouldn't start lighting the torches and sharpening the pitchfork even if this guy moved in next door. I mean, the very worst I'd have to deal with was wiping the bike down before getting on - it's not like the bike's going to be traumatized by the experience.

Disgusting!

I should have been his lawyer

Nobody is really trying yet...

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but brakes and chains excite me?

Quoted after the sentence, he allegedly said "Somehow it just spoke to me, but now I'm in chains and saddled with this Sex Register problem. I'm tyred of the whole thing and can't get a handle on these bars. I still say I was framed, and my lawyer is trying for a suspension. Otherwise I'm forked. I wheely am sorry about all this. I need a brake.".

Offenders' Register

This is a stark warning about the creeping authority that modern government now imposes upon us all.

When the Sex Offenders Register was introduced, we were reassured that it would only be used for people who were a clear danger to the community: paedophiles and rapists, mainly. But it has been used several times in the cases of young men who have had sex with 15-year-old girls.

[And in one notorious case, against a 14-year-old boy who had regular and consensual sex with his 12-year-old girlfriend - presumably a girl of maturity similar to his own. No, I certainly wouldn't encourage sex between kids of this age - but the boy was not a "sex offender" as we normally think of them.]

Now it has been used against someone masturbating.

And terrorism laws ("they will only be employed in exceptional circumstances..." we were told) can be invoked if you heckle the Prime Minister too loudly.

We should resist every single new law they seek to impose on us; these same laws will be used against all sorts of people, at the whim of the police.

Pedalophile & Banned from Halfords?

I heard that this poor guy is a pedalophile and is listed on the "bike offenders register" (www.pedalophileregister.bike.com), he's been banned from being within 100 yards of Halfords and is electronically tagged so that he will be locked up should there be any "pedal motion".

Then again he's from Ayrshire so you kind of expect this kind of behaviour !

it's obvious really...

Waaah!

Won't someone *please* think of the poor innocent little tricycles who might have been corrupted by this pedalvert??!! He could have been hanging around the bike-sheds fondling chains - or even (gasp) mudguards!!

I wonder how long will it be before pianos have to have their legs covered because they're deemed too suggestive? Look at that tarty little Steinway over there - just asking for it...

old joke

There's an old joke that goes something like this. A missionary in Africa was attending a village where he was trying to teach the head man english. as they walked the perimeter of the village the missionary would point out objects and say their name aloud and the head man would repeat the word. "Tree", the missionary said and the man would repeat "tree". "Stick", the missionary said and the man would repeat "stick". Suddenly they came accross a man and womam making love. Embarassed, the missionary said "Man riding bike" and the head man became enraged, ran over and beat the other male to death. "Man riding my bike" said the head man.

Even if he did "flash" the ladies

Is that a sex offence? I rember reading 1984 and the bit about new speak. The part that is relevent to this and terrorism is the removal of words from the laguage. In that case there was only one word for sexual deviancy and included a lot of things from rape to enjoying sex to homosexuality to bike sex to masterbation ect.

If you haven't read 1984 read the section on new speak. It should be required reading in schools. Although any goverment who actually did that probably would be half decent.

We should all be consered about the nature of words used to describe (techinally innocent till proven guity) crims. In Australia the words rape and sexual assult are interchangable. But sexual assult also has other meanings. String them up if their guilty either way in my book but there is a huge difference between some being charged with sexual assult insted of sexual assult you none of you know what that difference is because I won't explain further.

If it gets to the point where an accusation or arrest (but yet no convition) can add you to the list then very bad things will happen. A number of us know of someone who has been accused of a sexual crime at some point. In my case it was a tech geek who spend time with other tech geeks. There was a 10 year age difference though so it was 13-14 year olds and a 23-24 year old. He had cops threating to kill his farm dog. And that was 10 years ago.

To clarify...

Yes, "flashing" or indecent exposure is illegal. The crime he was actually charged with was "sexual breach of the peace". He was NOT arrested for having sex with a bicycle and he was NOT in the privacy of his own bedroom. He was in a hostel (not hotel) and committed an offence that he subsequently pleaded GUILTY to. The bike being there is totally irrelevant to the offence, although it is the only reason it has been reported in the media.

@ Davey Bee:

Don't believe everything you read (or hear). There has been no 14 year old boy placed on the sex offenders register for having consensual sex with his 12 year old girlfriend. And your presumption that she would be of similar maturity to him is unfounded. The law does not work on presumptions, other than the presumption that a person is innocent until proven guilty. Also, cases where young men (teens, 20s) have consensual sex with 15 yr olds rarely ever make it to court as the chance of conviction is negligible. In cases where there is a conviction it is usually due to extreme circumstances (e.g. abuse, sexual immaturity of the girl etc.) and would in most cases rely heavily on the testimony of the girl in question. And while we're (sort of) on the subject: no paediatricians have ever had their house burnt down because people thought they were paedophiles - that is yet another media constructed URBAN MYTH.

In summary: this case is not evidence that we are living in a fascist state!

Now that rant is over, I should probably add a couple of jokes. It is a story about some guy fucking a bike after all...

Let's see... how's about...

This brings new meaning to the term bicycle pump.

... or maybe...

The bike usually turns to the man and says: "Not tonight love, I'm two-tyred."

to clarify further..

You are correct, Carlton; the stories of paediatricians having their houses burnt down by enraged mobs who didn't know the difference between a paediatrician and a paedophile is an urban myth. But it does have some basis in actual events. Here's the real story....

In August 2000, a female paediatrician consultant called Yvette Cloete was indeed labelled a "paedo" after a campaign by the News of the World to name and shame paedophiles in the community. The incident took place in Newport, Gwent, not in Portsmouth (where there had been anti-paedophile protests after eight-year-old Sarah Payne was murdered) or London.

(My sister-in-law lives just outside Portsmouth and we were staying with her when Sarah Payne was murdered - the mob indeed attacked a flat where a sex offender was supposed to be living, but he'd moved out some months before and the poor guy who was renting the flat at the time got the living daylights beaten out of him and lost an eye. Not that it was the right sex offender anyway, that was Roy Whiting.)

Dr Cloete returned from work at the Royal Gwent Hospital to find "paedo" spray-painted on her front door. Local police believe the graffiti was written by someone who confused her job title with the word paedophile. It was a very distressing incident for Ms Cloete, who as you might expect decided to move home shortly afterwards. But there was no evidence that a mob was involved or of any threats or incidents of physical pressure or violence.

However, at the time on the Paulsgrove estate in Portsmouth, and in other parts of the country, there was mob violence directed towards people and families suspected as paedophiles by mobs whipped up into a bloodlust by right-wing demagogues from the League of St George, although the News of the Screws was held responsible for publishing the names of "suspected" sex offenders. Four families on the estate had to be rehoused by Portsmouth Council because of attacks and intimidation - they had no connection with any sex offences. The Police themselves were attacked by the mob when they tried to break up the rioting!

A group of 15 anti-paedophile vigilantes chased and beat a 29-year-old Asian man in Whitley, Berkshire, in the same week. In Oldham, a 54-year-old grandfather is believed to have died after taking an overdose because he was "literally scared to death". Michael Horgan, 55, was been given police protection after letters branding him a child abuser were sent to 500 houses close to his home in south London, after he was wrongly named in the NoTW. Iain Armstrong, 49, of Bradford, was confronted by residents who thought he was a child abuser named by The News of the World.

This *urban myth* is actually an aggregation of several different, but true, stories. Of itself it is false, but that doesn't mean that similar things didn't, don't, and won't happen.

As to the poor man with the bike, he pleaded guilty and thus denied himself the opportunity for a court to determine whether any offence had actually been committed. His inclusion on the Sex Offenders Register now means that he must notify the Police within 48 hours of being away from his address or face 6 months imprisonment and/or a £5000 fine. It also means that he cannot work with children and must declare his "offence" when he applies for a job, and the Police can come to his home unannounced and question him as to his movements and associations and remove whatever proeprty thay see fit. Should a "Sarah's Law" ever go onto the statute books in the UK, his address would be made public and thus make him highly vulnerable to the type of vigilante attacks described above, as is the case in the US with "Megan's Law" - not really what he deserves, is it? Some vigilante nutjob hero looking to gain kudos with his mates for doing in a sex offender isn't going to be picky about his target and say "oh thats that guy who tried to shag his bicycle, I won't bother with him, he's harmless.."

And we were indeed promised that the Sex Offenders Register would only be for paedophiles and rapists. Small hope that the Govt will keep its word regarding the terror laws, 28/56/90 day detentions and the ID cards then.